{"id":1059,"date":"2014-12-31T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T17:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=1059"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:46:44","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:46:44","slug":"toefl-independent-writing-organizing-your-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-independent-writing-organizing-your-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"TOEFL Independent Writing: Organizing Your Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to ensure that an essay you write is well-organized. As Kate mentions, pre-writing is important. You should brainstorm<\/a> ideas, and plan the essay\u2019s basic structure.<\/a> Your TOEFL essay will probably only be two or three paragraphs<\/a>. Still, it will likely contain important elements from the five-paragraph essay<\/a>, particularly an introduction<\/a> and conclusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even with the best brainstorming and planning, sometimes your essay simply doesn\u2019t unfold the way you\u2019d hoped. Paragraphs can drift off-topic. Ideas can be placed in illogical, disconnected order. Important parts of your essay could simply be left out. You\u2019re most in danger of making these mistakes when your time for writing is very limited. Students who haven’t done much timed writing practice<\/a> are especially likely to make these mistakes. I\u2019ve certainly seen my students make mistakes like this when they\u2019re under deadline pressure. My writing can be disorganized too, when I\u2019m pinched for time.<\/p>\n

In the TOEFL Independent Writing task, you are given only thirty minutes to write an entire essay. This essay must be written from your own thoughts, with no integrated source material. This limited time and lack of structure makes it particularly challenging to write a well-ordered essay. With little time for pre-writing, sometimes the trick is to catch and correct your mistakes as you make them. How can you learn to do this? The first step is to learn how to correct mistakes in essay structure after <\/em>you make them.<\/p>\n

You can re-order a disorganized essay after the fact through a four step process:<\/p>\n

1) Look at the essay you\u2019ve already written, and make an outline of its structure.<\/p>\n

2) Look at the outline you\u2019ve made. Identify ideas that seem out of place or incomplete. Which ideas should you move to a different part of the essay? Which ideas should you remove entirely? Are there any missing ideas that you should add?<\/p>\n

3) Make a new outline based on your observations.<\/p>\n

4) Re-write your essay based on the new outline.<\/p>\n

This is a pretty straightforward process. I\u2019ve had many of my students revise essays through these four steps. I would encourage you to use these four steps on essays you\u2019ve already written. You may be surprised at how many organizational problems you\u2019re able to find and correct by this method.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re having trouble practicing this method, I have some good news. In my next post on essay organization, I will directly demonstrate my four-step method. You\u2019ll get to see me revise a very poorly done essay that I myself wrote as a first year university student.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many ways to ensure that an essay you write is well-organized. As Kate mentions, pre-writing is important. You should brainstorm ideas, and plan the essay\u2019s basic structure. Your TOEFL essay will probably only be two or three paragraphs. Still, it will likely contain important elements from the five-paragraph essay, particularly an introduction and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13614],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-1059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-task-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTOEFL Independent Writing: Organizing Your Ideas - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-independent-writing-organizing-your-ideas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TOEFL Independent Writing: Organizing Your Ideas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are many ways to ensure that an essay you write is well-organized. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C50&q=Recine+magoosh&btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}